


Only Prettier

by beyond_realitys_reach



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 16:06:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4793822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyond_realitys_reach/pseuds/beyond_realitys_reach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a little Presston one shot I did based on the song Love You More by Racoon but I wrote it while listening to I Was Made For Loving You by Tori Kelly ft. Ed Sheeran.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only Prettier

**Author's Note:**

> Instead of writing the next chapter of I'll Come Around, I wrote this because I'm trash.
> 
> Sorry bout it.

“You look like you did before,” she answers, pausing for a beat to hand the girl a towel to wipe her eyes with, “only prettier,” she adds in a barely audible whisper.

That was the first thing she said to Julie when she found her crying in the locker room after her stupid ass boyfriend decided to break up with her in front of their whole class. It’s as if he thinks the entire student body wants to hop on his dick and that making it known that he’s single would get him a piece of ass quicker. Christen knows that’s the furthest thing from the truth, knows that most women can’t wait to get away from him.

Then there’s Julie. The girl that stayed by his side for four long years while he did nothing but treat her like shit. There’s no way she couldn’t have known about the things he’s done behind her back. Christen gets it, though. After four years, you become comfortable with that person. You think you know them better than anyone else, and then everything just comes crashing down in the blink of an eye.

“I must’ve looked like shit before then,” came the muffled answer.

The hazel-eyed brunette turns to see the taller girl leaning on the sink, staring at herself in the mirror. She’s mumbling swear words and shaking her head at herself, and Christen can’t help but feel sympathetic.

She feels sympathy for the girl’s douchebag ex-boyfriend.

Not Julie. It’s obviously his loss in her opinion.

Not that she would know because, contrary to popular belief, Julie and Christen barely even know each other. You’d think that because they’ve played on the same soccer team all throughout high school that they’d know a thing or two about one another aside from what noise the other makes to call for the ball.

They don’t.

The hazel-eyed girl opted out of attending the team bonding days. She’d much rather spend her weekends sprawled in bed with a good book and nothing but a towel on.

Julie mainly joined to have something to bond with her boyfriend over, but she ended up loving the sport more than spending time with him. Hence the break-up.

At least, Christen thinks that’s what it’s all about. He’s cheated on his ex-girlfriend with three other girls, though, so she doesn’t understand why it matters to him. In the time that her teammate was training to become the best player that she could be, he was still reaping the benefits, so why exactly does it matter that she wasn’t glued to his hip? Christen probably won’t ever understand.

“Seriously, you look fine,” the shorter girl says, shoving her gym clothes into her soccer bag before making her way towards the sink. She leans her back on the one next to Julie and crosses her arms over her chest, her eyes remaining locked on the taller girl. “I feel like it’s safe to say that he was your ride,” she more-so asks than states. She got a nod in return. “Come on. Your place is on the way.”

The blue-eyed blonde raises an amused eyebrow, still trying to wipe the smeared make up from her face. “How do you know where I live?”

Christen waves her off, pulling her keys out and slinging her bag over her shoulder. “S’not important. Come with me if you want to live,” she smiles at the half-assed laugh she got in return to the Terminator reference.

* * *

Fast forward another year, Julie and Christen end up attending the same college. UCLA to be exact. Christen was torn between the Bruins and Stanford, but when the coach offered her a full ride, there was nothing to be torn between.

She didn’t find out that Julie was offered the same exact deal until the first day of camp. The California native didn’t even have to see her face to know it was her high school teammate. She could tell by the way she was bent over tying her hair into a ponytail because that’s basically the younger woman’s trademark.  She’s the only person Christen has ever met that has to tilt her head down in order to collect all of her hair to put it up.

Maybe half of it was her ass too. The hazel-eyed girl has admired a lot of asses in her time, but Julie’s will forever be the best if she has anything to say about it.

Maybe those two combined with the fact that she was donning her high school number, 19, in light blue letters. That, and the blonde hair was kind of a dead giveaway.

And maybe, just maybe, Christen paid more attention to Julie in high school than either of them thought.

Fast forward, again, to the championship game. The one that broke Julie’s heart in two, and left her wondering what she’d done in her life to deserve this type of pain.

It was a simple shot, really. All she had to do was point and shoot, so to speak. And she did.

The defender just came in a little late with her tackle, sending Julie straight to the ground in nothing but pure agony.

“Julie!” Christen screams, rushing to drop down beside the taller girl that was clutching her leg in pain. “Hey, relax, you’re gonna be fine.” She internally rolls her eyes at her response. Honestly, it’s not something you should say when your teammate’s laying on the ground screaming.

Julie grimaces, clenching her jaw in the process. “Do not tell me to fucking relax,” she pauses, her eyes snapping shut, tears rushing down her face.

The older girl holds her hands up in surrender, chuckling, despite the situation, at her teammate’s lack of filter. The more tears she watched run down Julie’s face, the worse she started to feel because there’s absolutely nothing she can do or say to take the pain away. She stands, telling the referee to bring the trainers on.

She watches on as they assessed the situation, only moving when the trainer asks her to help him get the blonde onto the stretcher, then she bends down, holding it in place while the two medical professionals hoisted the center back onto it.

“That was a total fucking red card by the way,” the younger woman yells at the closest referee, making sure to enunciate ‘fucking red card’ a lot louder than the rest of the sentence. “I probably look like a hot mess right now,” Christen hears the younger girl comment with a bitter chuckle. “Fucking figures,” she grunts, obviously still in pain. “Are we gonna fucking go or what? Honestly.”

Christen can’t help but laugh at that last part. Typical Julie. The girl has always been a hot-head. The older girl supposes she gets it from someone related to her down the line because she’s met both of her parents, and they’re literal sweethearts.

“What’re you laughing at, Press? I’m over here, probably fucking dying. There’s nothing funny about that.”

“You’re so dramatic,” she rolls her eyes, cringing afterwards. “Not that you don’t have every right to be. I’d be pissed. That was definitely red card worthy. Oh my God, you’re right,” she smacks herself in the face lightly. “While you’re most likely not dying, you’re still injured, and I’m just laughing. I’m such a terrible teammate.”

It’s Julie’s turn to laugh this time—albeit through tears because she’s in the most pain she’s ever been in. “At least you don’t look terrible. I probably look like the fucking evil queen right now. I can’t even imagine what my hair looks like.”

The midfielder scoffs, and opens her mouth to reply, but the medical team beats her to it, lifting and securing the center back onto the gurney to carry her off the field. Christen walks to the sideline with them, determined to say one last thing to her teammate before she left.

“You look like you did before,” she squeezes her hand reassuringly, “only prettier,” she finishes with a wink before jogging back to her position on the field.

* * *

“Julie was asking about you,” Alex comments, plopping down onto the couch next to the midfielder. “She’s terribly drunk, and I couldn’t really understand anything, but I know your name came out more than just a few times.”

They’re currently sitting on a random couch at a Beta Tau ‘winner’s party’ as the boys like to call them. It has become quite the tradition for the men’s soccer team to throw the women a different type of party after every win, and this one just happens to be the only to involve alcohol so far.

To be fair, they’ve all needed it.

Christen takes a sip of her drink before biting her lip in thought. “A season-ending injury will do that to a person,” she says regarding her teammate’s drunkenness as she watches the taller woman hobbling towards the couch, crutches barely complying with her wishes to move forward. It’d be cute, she thinks, if the blonde were drunk for any other reason.

“This seat taken?” she asks Alex to which she shakes her head in the negative, leaving the two girls to talk. “This party sucks,” the younger star complains, her crutches dropping like flies on the floor in front of her.

The older woman snorts, “Or you’re just too fucking inebriated to enjoy yourself,” she pauses, watching on as Julie tries to get comfortable. After observing the other woman for a few minutes she huffs, setting her beer on the coffee table. “You need to elevate it,” she gestures to the center back’s injured leg. “You can rest it over my lap if you want. I don’t mind. It’s not like I’ll be going anywhere anytime soon anyway.”

Julie does as she says—albeit hesitantly. “I can’t believe I fucking tore my ACL,” she lets out a bitter chuckle. Christen notes that she seems to be doing that a lot more lately but doesn’t say anything. It’s not her place to considering she’s never been injured. She has no idea what the blonde is going through. “No. Actually, I tore an MCL too. Just my fucking luck.”

“Sulking about it won’t make it go away.”

The older player regrets it the moment the words came out of her mouth. She can only close her eyes in frustration as she watches Julie stand—as quickly as her injury would let her—and walk away. It wasn’t until she saw her opening the sliding glass door that Christen decides to stand up and follow her, throwing her beer away on the way out.

“You don’t get it,” she hears the injured woman sigh as she sits down in the white wooden chair beside her. “The U-23 coach called me up two days prior to that game, Press. I didn’t tell anyone because I just wanted to soak it up by myself for a while. They called you too, I’m assuming?”

The brunette nods solemnly, “Yeah, right after they talked to you. That was the only reason I agreed to it.” The blonde’s head snaps to her left at the confession, and she lifts a confused eyebrow. “Don’t act so surprised,” she rolls her eyes.

“I’m not acting,” the younger woman replies, shifting in her seat to get more comfortable.

She has a grimace on her face, Christen notes. It’s like it has taken permanent residence on her face every single time the young center back moves, and once again, the older brunette comes to terms with the fact that she’ll never know what that’s like. Or, at least, she hopes she won’t ever have to find out. But, she feels for the girl.

The brunette decides right then that, even though the grimace is there because she’s in pain, the blonde is still ridiculously adorable.

“I practically worshipped you in high school. I still do,” was the reply that came, followed by a laugh. “Wow. I never thought I’d actually tell you that.”

The blonde just chuckles along. She has never really paid that much attention to any of the other girls on her high school squad. Sure, she found them pretty, but she was with her boyfriend, and she didn’t think finding someone of the same sex attractive held any meaning.

It wasn’t until grade eleven that she actually started to feel like something in her was changing. Or maybe it had always been there. She doesn’t really know, but she does know that her, now, ex-boyfriend hadn’t been getting the job done, not only sexually but also mentally.

He’d never really been good at pleasing her in the sexual aspect of things. The way some of her teammates talked about sex and how they felt afterwards came nowhere close to how she felt after they did the deed. She felt like the sex was actually just subpar at best, but when the girls would ask, she’d just lie and say it was amazing.

“I’m glad you did,” the younger player replies after breaking out of her thoughts. “Even if I’m too fucking wasted to remember this conversation in the morning, I’m glad it happened. Though, I’ll probably regret letting you see me cry again. It’s a real site for sore eyes.”

The brunette scrunches her nose up, letting a puff of air pass through her mouth to pose as a laugh. “You look like you did before, Johnston,” she pauses for effect, “only prettier.”

* * *

Christen is at Kay Jewelers trying to pick out the perfect ring when she feels her phone vibrating in her pocket. After pulling it out, an immediate smile makes its way onto her face, and she quickly apologizes to the man behind the counter, telling him that she has to take the call.

“I’m gonna fucking kill Alex if she makes me go into one more store.”

“Hello to you too,” the brunette chuckles, the smile never leaving her face. It seems that happens a lot when she’s talking to the woman that stole her heart from the start. Hell, she giggles like a child just thinking about her girlfriend.

Hopefully her fiancée after tonight.

“Sorry, hello my beautiful girlfriend,” Christen can practically see the pout currently residing on Julie’s face through the phone. “I miss you.”

The older woman rolls her eyes because, seriously, Julie would miss her after only being apart for less than three hours. “I miss you too, babe,” she admits. “Is that the only reason you called?”

“Honestly, I just wanted to hear your voice.”

The response is so _Julie_ that Christen can’t even be mad about it. Not that she’d be mad anyway. Talking to the blue-eyed blonde is her favorite thing in the world—second favorite if you pair it with kissing her and third if you count any circumstance that involves Julie in minimal clothing.

“Am I interrupting something?” The blonde asks after a couple moments of silence, effectively pulling the older girl from her thoughts. “Chris, you aren’t, _you know_ , are you?”

Christen audibly snorts at the question. Leave it to Julie to chalk up her silence to masturbation. She can’t blame her, though, considering Christen’s actually a quiet cummer. It makes sense that the younger girl would think that, but imagining herself masturbating in a place full of expensive jewelry, makes her laugh.

“No, Jules. I’m out shopping with Tobin,” she says, remembering that her teammate had actually come with her. She and Alex figured it’d be the perfect alibi if Julie were to have any suspicions about her whereabouts. Tobin and Alex are also the only ones—save for Megan Rapinoe—that know about Christen’s plan to propose. Mainly because Pinoe has a big mouth, but mostly because they eavesdropped on a conversation she’d had with Julie’s mom and dad two months prior. “Are you and Alex still meeting us for lunch?”

The blonde groans, muttering something incoherent under her breath before avoiding the question completely, “I don’t know how Tobs puts up with Baby Horse,” she mutters. “You don’t need any more clothes, Alex! You have three bags already!” She shouts, and Christen’s ears will probably never recover from that. She’ll survive, though. It’s not like she hasn’t heard her girlfriend scream louder than that. “Sorry. Again,” she laughs, and it’s music to the brunette’s ears. “I guess I should let you go now, but yes, we’re still on for lunch. I love you.”

“I love you too, pretty girl.”

She disconnects the call and walks back up to the counter where she left Tobin, apologizing once again for being pulled away in the first place. There was no way, though, that she was going to screen her girlfriend’s call because, one, she simply loves talking to her, and two, she’d get an earful from Julie when they eventually meet up for lunch.

“It’s completely fine,” he waves her off with a smile before getting back to business. “Is there any ring in particular that you like?”

Christen purses her lips, looking over each ring thoroughly before sighing deeply. She smiles slightly when Tobin rests a hand on her shoulder.

“I should know which one she’d love, Tobs. We’ve been together for four years now,” she says, resting her head in her palm.

Then she remembers the picture she took of her girlfriend the evening prior.

It was a simple photo, really. Julie was sitting on the balcony at their hotel, glasses on her face and a book in her hand when Christen walked out. The smile on her face and her nose scrunched all cute paired with the loose black shirt hanging off of her shoulder and the grey sweatpants really made the blonde pop right out at her. There was no way she was letting that moment go without capturing it.

Wanting to capture every single moment with her girlfriend makes Christen feel like she’s sixteen years old all over again.

She takes her phone out, opening up the photos app to bring up the picture and shows it to the jeweler. “I feel bad, but I just can’t decide for myself because she deserves everything good in this world. I wanna go all out for this one, so could you maybe help me pick one out?”

He takes her phone, setting it on the counter and hums as he searches for the perfect one. When he finds it, he claps his hands, scaring the shit out of both of the women standing in front of him and apologizes profusely for five minutes afterwards. Christen’s mouth gapes when he pulls the ring out for her to see. It’s Vera Wang’s LOVE with eight blue sapphires along the side, and the girl literally wants to cry because it fucking screams _Julie_. “It’s rather pricey, but I think she’ll love it. What girl wouldn’t?” He asks rhetorically, gaining a laugh out of his other coworkers and the women.

“This is the one, Tobs,” Christen says, pointing to the ring the jeweler set on the counter beside her phone. The picture of Julie is still on the screen, and it makes her smile widen even further. “I’m really doing this. Like, in a few hours, that girl is gonna make me the happiest woman in the entire world,” she says with a dopey smile that soon turns to a frown, adding as an afterthought, “hopefully.”

“She’ll say yes, Press,” Tobin nudges her shoulder.

The gesture is enough to take the frown right off of her face because, yeah, her girlfriend will most definitely say yes.

Two hours and a change of clothes later, the duo find themselves waiting at a restaurant in downtown Vancouver for their significant others. Their halfway through a conversation about their most recent win when Christen sees her.

She opted for a casual but still dressy-like outfit. Tight black jeans cover her legs, a long white sweater covers her torso and stops just around mid-thigh. A grey beanie sits overtop her straightened blonde hair, and she’s wearing those black boots that make her ten million times taller than she already is, and even if Christen has to stand on a chair just to kiss her in greeting, she doesn’t care because Julie couldn’t look any more perfect if she tried.

“You look beautiful,” the older woman comments as Julie sits down beside her before leaning in for what was supposed to be a short peck that soon turned into a semi-heated kiss. The blonde smells like vanilla and strawberries, and Christen finds herself wanting to just breathe in that scent for the rest of her life.

Julie smiles against her lips, kissing her even harder and pulls away when she hears the waiter ask if they’d like to order. “So do you,” she finally responds to the compliment with a flushed face. After all these years, she still can’t take a compliment, and as usual, the brunette finds it endearing.

They make small talk with Alex and Tobin for another hour, before they decide to part ways.

Alex leaves them both with a hug, and Tobin winks at Christen as if to say good luck, and Julie catches it but doesn’t say anything. She just figures it’s Tobin being her goofy ass self.

When they finally make it to their car, the blonde lets out a sigh of relief and shoots a half smile to Christen when she interlocks their fingers and begins to drive. She rests their joined hands on her lap and leans her head against the window, daydreaming about the cozy bed and two dogs waiting at the house for them after a long day of shopping with Alex Morgan.

Her plans of cuddling in her bed with the older woman with the dogs curled up at the end on the floor go right out the window when the car comes to a stop at the park a few blocks away from their house. She raises an eyebrow in question at her girlfriend, but she just waves her off with a tap to her inner thigh.

“I know it’s kind of chilly out today, but I thought we could go for a walk through the park?”

It’s meant to be a question, Julie knows that, but Christen doesn’t even have to ask. She never has to ask. The blonde would follow her through anything, no matter how bad the outcome could be.

“Of course, babe,” she whispers, leaning in for a gentle kiss, but just like every other time she kisses the older woman, it turns into something more. And before either woman knows it, hands are roaming and breaths are intermingling. It’s only after Julie lets out a breathy moan that Christen pulls back, remembering the exact reason she’d wanted to come to the park.

They walk hand in hand towards the swings, neither of them speaking. They’re just enjoying each other’s company like usual. A couple moments of serenity pass before Julie decides to break the silence. “Do you remember last time we came here?” She asks, laughing fondly at the memory currently flitting through her mind.

Her girlfriend nods, a chuckle escaping her lips. She knows exactly what memory Julie’s mind has dug up from the pits of hell. This same park is the place that Christen finally gathered the courage to ask the younger girl to be her girlfriend.

After they graduated college, she had regretted not making a move on the center back. Little did she know they’d end up on the same team yet again. This time to play for their country. The soccer field about a mile up the street is where they first encountered each other again, and Christen embarrassed the shit out of herself by attempting a bicycle kick that went horridly wrong.

“That’s actually exactly why I brought you here tonight,” she reveals, sticking her hands in the pockets of her coat, mostly because it’s cold but also because she’s nervous as fuck. And part of her wants to make sure the ring is still there because that’d be just her luck. She’d be down on one knee, fully intent on popping the question and reach into her pocket to find nothing. That’d be hard to explain.

_Well, you see, I had the ring. I just don’t know where it went. Will you marry me?_

Something tells Christen that Julie would probably say yes anyway, but she decides not to chance it.

Luckily enough for her, the expensive piece of jewlery still sits right in the same pocket she’d put it in two hours prior.

“Oh yeah? You just wanted to reminisce on the good old days?” Julie smirks, and she has that same twinkle in her eyes today that she’d had four years ago that made the brunette squirm. The good kind of squirm. The kind of squirm that makes her want to just kiss Julie hard for a good ten minutes, but she contains herself.

She smiles, watching her girlfriend begin swinging. As the blonde pushes off the ground, Christen steps in front of her, immediately dropping to one knee because fuck the fairytale bullshit speech. Nothing they’ve ever done has been by the books, and the older woman doesn’t intend to play by the rules now.

She pulls the box out of her pocket right as Julie goes to stand up and ask her what’s wrong, stopping the blonde in her tracks. She doesn’t open it yet, but she can already see the tears rolling down her girlfriend’s cheeks. Her hand is already trying to wipe them away, but the action just makes them fall harder.

The brunette waits for her to gain her bearings before she opens the lid, revealing the most beautiful ring Julie has ever laid her eyes on. “I won’t lie to you. I didn’t plan a speech or anything because that hasn’t ever been something we do. We don’t need speeches,” she pauses, a sheepish grin making its way onto her face. “I know how much you hate grand romantic gestures. I believe it was you that once told me if I ever proposed to you in front of a group of friends or family that you’d automatically say no. So, here we are,” she looks around the secluded park. It’s well after six, and it’s a school night, so she figured everyone would be in for the night. “We’re alone, and I’m down on one knee because I was made for loving you.”

Julie nods even though she didn’t ask her yet.

She knows she’ll say yes.

She’d say yes a million times over.

“Will you marry me?” Christen finally gains the courage to ask, and though Julie was nodding before the question even left her lips, she was still anxious about her answer.

The blonde nods enthusiastically and bends down to kiss her girlfriend harder than she ever has.

When it ends, Christen stands, their foreheads still connected. With their lips inches apart and their breaths still intermingling, she slides the ring onto Julie’s finger and kisses her again, this time slower. More passionate. More deliberate. More like her life depends on it.

“Yes,” the blonde finally actually answers the question as if the kiss wasn’t answer enough for the both of them.

The shorter of the two hums, pulling the younger one closer, almost too close for comfort. Christen’s a sobbing mess within seconds due to all the pent up stress she’d had about proposing. It’s not that she ever doubted Julie would say yes, though. Her insecurities just got the best of her. “I’m such a fucking mess right now,” she mutters, and Julie can practically hear the pout already forming on her lips.

“You?” She questions incredulously albeit playfully. “I’m the one with mascara running down my face.”

Christen scoffs, but instead of pushing her girlfriend—her fiancée—away, she pulls her in tighter. She honestly doesn’t ever want to let her go. She mumbles something that sounds a lot like _I look like shit_ , and the blonde automatically smacks her lightly on the back.

“You look like you did before,” Julie smirks, knowing this line will get the intended reaction out of Christen. “Only prettier.”

The shorter woman pulls out of the embrace with a small smile on her face but rests their foreheads together. “You can’t just steal my line, Jules,” she whispers before closing the gap between their lips.


End file.
